1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a word processor with a spelling check function, especially one for avoiding an unnecessary alarm caused during spelling checking of a proper noun.
2. Prior Art
Recent work processors and electronic typewriters are provided with a spelling check function which can check the spelling of an input word. Those work processors or typewriters include a dictionary memory storing many correctly spelled words. When a word is input from a keyboard, the spelling of the input word is automatically checked by comparing it with all words in the dictionary memory.
In case of an electronic typewriter or incase of a typewriter mode of a work processor in which each input character is printed on a paper individually, when a word partition key, such as a space key, comma key, period key, carriage return key, etc., is operated, the preceding group of characters are considered a word and spelling checking automatically begins for the word. When the word is judged to be mis-spelled, an alarm is issued to the operator.
Generally, such word processors or typewriters have a user dictionary for mainly storing proper nouns. In the user dictionary, in many cases, personal names, company names, place names, etc. that frequently appear in documents are entered (or registered) in the dictionary by the operator to make the spelling checking operation smoother and speedier. In the spelling checking process, the input word is compared not only with words in the standard dictionary provided but also with words in the user dictionary to check whether the word is mis-spelled. The words in the user dictionary are first entered usually during the course of spelling checking operation when the input word is judged mis-spelled.
But the above prior art word processors or typewriters have a shortcoming. Frequently appearing proper nouns are stored in the user dictionary by the operator and are not judged to be mis-spelled because they are passed by the spelling checker. But a rarely appearing proper noun word cannot be entered in the user dictionary before it appears in a document. When there are many such rare proper nouns in a document, the inputting operation is frequently interrupted by an alarm from the spelling checker. This interferes with quick typing. Entering the rare proper nouns in the dictionary does not solve the problem because such registration takes time and each of the many words appears only once in one typing job.